Delicious Peruvian Roast Chicken at Pio Pio

This weekend was labor day weekend so we had long weekend. Also, my husband's friend from Germany came to visit us so we went to many places and we did lots of things and we ate lots of great food!

On Sat, we went to Manhattan and for dinner, we went to this Peruvian restaurant called "Pio Pio" which I have been to once and loved. This restaurant has about four locations in Manhattan, two or three in queens and one in Bronx.

Last year, my friends took us to one of their upper east side location. It was really good so I wanted to go there again. This time, I found one location in Hell's Kitchen so we decided to go one in Hell's Kitchen this time.

One in Hell's Kitchen was bigger and little fancier than one in upper west side. We ordered same thing which we had last time.

Roasted chicken and Jalea which is fried seafood with tomato and onion salsa on top of them. They are just so good. chicken is so juicy and flavorful. Fried seafood is great with those tangy limey salsa.

The green sauce in the picture is really really good. We had to order refill of this green sauce for three times.

We also had avocado salad and french fries on the side.

On top of these, we also had two different kind of desserts (forgot to take picture). I am very proud that we (four of us) finished all of these food. I am glad that everybody enjoyed this Peruvian food. I wish I had this restaurant close to my house!

After the dinner, we wanted to go to a roof top bar with a nice view but since it was long weekend, some of the roof top bar we tried had a long line. Plus, we were not well dressed enough for some of the bars. So we decided to go to Japanese Karaoke box. We arrived there but this was also very busy and the wait was about one hour so we decided to do Karaoke some other time and went back home.

When we arrived home, it was already past 2 am and I was so tired. Maybe it was good that we couldn't go to a bar or karaoke that night. But I had a great time in the city!!!

Healthy and Easy Vegetable Soup!

I made an easy vegetable soup with the vegetables and hot dog I have in my fridge. This soup is so easy. I just added vegetables and hot dog with a little bit of salt and water. I don't even have to add any other flavor since all the great flavor from vegetables are there.


First, saute hot dog and onions.

Add carrots and saute more.

Add other vegetables such as cabbage, green onion, broccoli and saute until they are soft. Add some salt.

Add canned diced tomato (250ml)

Mix them well and add 800ml of water and turn the heat down. Simmer until all the vegetables are soft. That's it. And you will have a wonderful vegetable soup.

It is amazing what vegetable can do. I love this soup. It is a bit too hot yet to make soup but when it is get cooler, I will be making more of this soup. It is a perfect main course or side dish. Enjoy!

Honey Butter Toast

This is something I saw in Japan and I wanted to try it out. Normally, here in the U.S., most of the sandwich bread is already sliced so I couldn't make this but the other day I bought this unsliced loaf bread at a Japanese grocery store so I bought it and decided to give this toast a try.


First, I cut the bottom part of loaf bread for about 4 inches thick. Then, make incisions at the edge between crust and inside, also made a cross incisions inside. Add butter and honey.

Set the broiler to "high" and put the toast under the broiler for about 5 min or until it is golden brown.
If you would like, you can add more butter and honey at this point.

I shared with my husband. I ate half and my husband ate the other half.

It is all done!

Of course, I don't throw away the crust. I cut them into stripes and bake it in the oven with some butter & sugar or make some crouton for salad.

My husband loves this toast. He said he had never seen anything like this. This has been quite popular in Japan for a few years already and you can find them in many coffee shop and stuff. I think whoever come up with this toast is a great inventor!